Another Way
by Faene Druin
Summary: Bilbo lived and died a hobbit, albiet an adventurous one. So adventurous infact, that he takes another go at living ... Just not as a hobbit.
1. Meeting

**1: The Meeting**

Lights flashed, buzzed, and wiggled before Bilbo's eyes in the moments before his death. Tired and sore joints began to finally lose the stiff tension they had carried within him for nigh on three decades now.

Life was over, and the oldest hobbit to ever live was ready to breathe his last in the healing land of the eternal elves. Between one heart beat and the next, the extra-ordinary hobbit known as Bilbo Baggins, Dragon Riddler, Ring Bearer, and Uncle, slipped free of his very old body and finally began his last adventure.

….

That was, until the hobbit sensed an immense presence. Two in-fact.

On his left he felt the seasons, warmth, cold, sunlight and growth, twilight and sleep, joy, sorrow, and unending surety of love.

On his right he felt the raw potential of creativity. The heat of a forge, the grain of wood beneath hands, passion, obsession, and pride.

Try as he might, his senses remained locked to these entities, but not the senses he had been familiar with in a body. Without the physical senses of sight, touch, or smell, he perceived these entities with his experiences of emotional responses. The joy he felt at some things, the distaste he found from others – it was certainly new.

'_We have been awaiting you, dirt child', _the entity to his right 'boomed', as if he had been shouted at. Not unlike the hearing sensation of a hammer on an anvil.

_'We come to you, oh soul of fierce and fragile heart', _the left entity cajoled, not unlike the content joy of seeing the harvest at full bounty.

'_Yes, as we have come to you before. _

_As we might come to you after. _

_We have asked this of many._

_May we yet succeed with you now as we have not succeeded before.' _The right entity spoke with force and surety, strong and unwary. Confidence that every word would be heard.

'_The tragedy of the line of Durin had far reaching consequences in the song of Arda. _

_The death of the dwarrow came too soon._

_It strains the very fabric of your world, dirt child, in such away that there is no longer any guarantee that the world shall be remade._

_For this we enlist your aid.'_

As the entity drifted into silence, Bilbo thoughts began spinning in an unpleasant manner. He had many questions, none of this made a lick of sense. His poor heart (or what he identified as his heart) lurched and twisted in on itself at the mention of the line of Durin.

How had they requested his aid before now? One would assume he would have remembered such an auspicious occasion. How had their deaths put into jeopardy the only thing that would ensured the dwarrow were welcomed into the song of Arda?

Bilbo went to ask them these questions, yet before he could release a sound, the entity of fresh fruit and dappled sunshine spoke.

'_We are of the very fabric that is Arda, _

_As such we have bent and shaped the reality again and again,_

_In defiance of Our Father to prevent this uncertainty from occurring,_

_We cannot directly affect the occurrence itself from transpiring,_

_That is why we enlist aid from the mortals_

_Yet no matter which way we split the song it still converges into the uncertainty. _

_It is distressing. '_

It took only seconds for Bilbo to decide. He had spent years nursing the bitter turn the fates had taken with the Durins, and his part in it. Yet now, now he had a chance to alter that. To perhaps, stop it from happening at all.

As the decision was made, entities seemed to swell,

_'Thank you again,_

_For being the brave soul,_

_The fragile heart,_

_The willing adventurer.' _Whispered the morning song of blue birds.

_'Dirt child,_

_We are attempting this with heavy heart,_

_We shall reshape you,_

_Put you in their path a different way,_

_You shall see yourself as you never have before,_

_Have heart, thief of precious things,_

_For you shall need it all your days.'_ Offered the deep song of voices in stone halls.

Bilbo then felt a tug at the very center of him, as if secured by a rope. This tug forced Bilbo to approach the figure on the right. The hulking, masculine, presence growing even larger in his perception. This continued, picking up speed, until alarmingly, Bilbo was rocketing towards the center of the presence.

The little hobbit soul cringed as he expected to collide with the entity. Instead, he passed through the entity with as much resistance as a spoon through jelly.

This was his last conscious thought before a calm weightlessness overwhelmed him.

**_nb: For those you who are waiting on my other story... its coming. these last few years have altered me in many ways. I am now trying to re-adjust my thinking so the story will be smooth. Also, I am attempting all of this on mobile. very new. _**


	2. LifeAgain

**2: Life… Again**

Time lost all meaning for Bilbo for a long while. Long periods of being semi- aware, semi-awake, instinctual feelings of stretching limbs, kicking, and turning over in a warm place only just large enough for him.

The first instance Bilbo was aware of being "awake", was startling in its intensity.

Loud noises, strong touch, bright lights, vivid smells. It was almost like he had been born again, he pondered.

Then Bilbo opened his eyes and took in the world around him….

Correction… He HAD been born again, on the road somewhere.

Large hands were holding him aloft as the summer breeze blew past.

Loud voices singing in joy for his mother settled in the air about him as the healer wiped him clean. The motion of the cloth on his still sensitive new skin drawing a whimper from him in discomfort.

"Sh, sh, little one." Rumbled the healer absentmindedly

"Almost done, then ya get ta see ya Ma."

Time seemed to blur from there as he was placed in his mother's arms. All his weak eyes could perceive of her was a shock of honey yellow, most likely her hair.

"Hello there my pebble," She crooned down to him

" I'm ya new Ma and I will always love you."

A settled silence hushed over the group then. The babe knew then that what came next would shape their entire new life.

"Welcome to the world, Áin son of Áki" The world echoed strangely out into the crowd, rippling and growing, as his new name was whispered and shared throughout the travelling group.

As this happened around them, his mother leaned in close to him, her smell overwhelming his new senses.

She smelled of raw wool, wood oil, and mushrooms. A strange combination, but it instantly meant home to little Áin formerly Bilbo.

For even as young as he was, not even a full hour, Áin knew he was no longer a hobbit. The voices around him were deeper, even the females, the arms that held him were sturdier, surer than a hobbit lass fresh from birthing, and their atmosphere were more somber , not as jovial and carefree as a party of hobbits would be.

His introspection complete, he focused back on his mother just as she whispered something to him. The words roared into his ear and down, down, down into the center of him. It lit a spark inside that he hadn't realised was still dark, it highlighted pieces of him that would define his future self, aspects that had been molded into his very soul. The sensation was as if one thousand voices sang in unison in a hall that never ended, the sound bouncing from edifice to edifice unending.

It was in that moment that Áin knew himself completely. The feeling continued for a breathless moment in time before fading back into the center of himself, keeping the spark alight. He would never forget the words whispered to him from his mother, even if she would.

The world slowly opened up to Áin following that moment, piece by piece, day by day, and year by year.

He learnt their songs, their culture, and, most glaringly, of their struggles. Growing up Áin was able to place the timing of his birth from the knowledge of his previous life.

It just so happened to be a decade after the Desolation. Where the Dwarrow were still searching for a safe haven, this stretch of time marked the beginning of the slurs, distrust, and disgust for the Dwarrow as a race.

A race that he now called his own.

He was Áin Ákiul, a dwarf hailing from Erebor, from the clan of Longbeards.

His father was a strong and sturdy dwarrow of common miner's stock – dark of hair and fair of skin. His preferred weapon was the Hammer passed down through his line, embossed on one side was the head of a fearsome feline creature, mouth opened in a challenging roar.

His father, Áki, was of mild temperament who preferred sound over silence. It was often that the dwarfling could pick his father from the crowd merely by following his humming. He was often at the center of any impromptu merry making.

Áin's mother, Ulla, was a loud dwarrowdam, whose charming personality made her easy friends. His mother hailed from a long line of Crafters: weavers, carvers, and the like.

Ulla herself was a Spinner, a craft that required wool and other such fibers to be dyed and spun into useable width and durability. Having chosen such a craft, his mother's fingertips had a unique texture of toughened skin where she spun her materials that were then sold on the Weavers.

Another unique feature was her hair, Áin's mother was one of the few dwarrow blessed flaxen gold hair, it shone and tossed light like a dance under the sun, her beard expertly braided to look like a rolling wave of wheat in the sun.

These were Áin's parents in this life, and he loved them dearly.

In fact, it was because of the dedicated love and protection that it took fifteen years for Áin to experience first hand the hatred and bigotry other races held for the Dwarrow.


End file.
